CAMPAIGN BUG: Shard of Power + Hunter's Gambit

[Morettos]

While I was playing Baduruu's campaign against Zaladar, Zaladar summons Shard of power, leaving its allies to a max. of 1 health, but everytime I attached Hunter's Gambit into an opposing ally (with Shard of power's ability active) those allies didn't die. This bug happened every time this conditions were met.

Sorry if this is not the appropiate place to put this Bug, if so please a Moderator place it where this must be.

[a player]

Hmm... ... you appear to have been around long enough to remember this, but the strange behavior of Shard of Power is that it only changes Maximum Health to one.

In consequence, the normal current health value for each ally is retained in the background but not shown. Hunter's Gambit reduces the current health, but unless that result is zero, the ally is supposed to remain alive.

In other words: although it may seem counter-intuitive, Shard of Power and Hunter's Gambit are actually functioning properly as designed.

[Gondorian]

Please see here:

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....ower-VS-Gambit

[Morettos]

Thanks for your explanation a player and Gondorian. I'll be honest with you guys, when I read your posts I was very confused, with more questions than answers. I decided to read other threads so I could reach more knowledge about this topic. First thing I noticed is that lot of players confuse the interaction between SoP and Gambit with a BUG, but I was even more surprised that the community attributed such confusion into a human interpretation mistake. For my point of view, this is not a human mistake but a GUI (Graphical User Interface) shortcoming. Textual information, visual indicators and health animations during SoP + Gambit interaction leads players to misinterpret SoP's effect.

What we need to understand first is Shard of Power's effect, and I will quote a Gondorian's post which explains this really well:

There are ongoing modifiers (+/- health) and then there are ongoing effects that are not modifiers. Shard is the latter. It puts a continuous condition on the board stating all your allies' HPs are capped at 1HP overruling whatever each really does have.
Hopefully, this is something everyone can agree on when there are no modifiers involved!
Let's continue ...
A critical thing about Shard is that if it enters play and then leaves play, it should be as though it never entered in the first place. It must be able to toggle, in other words. There would be no way to restore the state without having an underlying uncapped health.

So… if I understood correctly, while SoP is in play, its effect will make allies to have 2 health values. First value will be 1 (the capped value according to Gondorian), which is the maximum health allies will have while SoP is on the field, and upon this value enemy attacks will act. The second value will be the normal life value every ally on field has (The underlying uncapped value). The main difference between this health values is that the latter value will be kept hidden in case SoP is removed from play, so the second value will be restored as if SoP would have never entered the field.

Now let's see how Hunter's Gambit works: “Attach to target opposing ally, that ally has -2 health”. According to the card's text, it will affect the health of the opposing ally, subtracting 2 units. Every player has already proven this effect countless times killing an enemy with 2 units of health using Gambit.

But why when we try to kill an enemy ally whose health has been “SoP-ed” using Gambit it doesn't die?

Apparently this happens because Gambit's effect only affects the hidden health value of the opposing ally but not the visible value, and I consider this behavior to be incorrect. In the same way that SoP creates 2 health values for each ally and in the same way physical damage is subtracted in both values, Hunter's Gambit health damage should be subtracted in both health values, instead of only subtracting it on the hidden value.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something?

[Gondorian]

In the same way that SoP creates 2 health values for each ally and in the same way physical damage is subtracted in both values, Hunter's Gambit health damage should be subtracted in both health values, instead of only subtracting it on the hidden value.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something?

You're missing that a cap is a cap.

If you have more than the cap then the cap pulls you down to the cap like a cap should. If you have the same value as the cap or lower then the cap effectively does nothing. Modifier cards are not caps. Shard of Power has a bespoke effect that causes it to act like a cap.

The value to compare to the cap is the value that would be there without the cap. We work out that value by applying whatever modifiers are active at that time.

I think I might suggest to the Board that we put the possibility of banning Shard of Power (worst text ever that sadly we have to implement as written) to Token Holders...

p.s. Why are you using SF against an AI with only CotC? That's a bit cheeky!

[Morettos]

p.s. Why are you using SF against an AI with only CotC? That's a bit cheeky!

Shame on me! I must admit it I'm a SF addict lol, makes things easier. But its time to dust of my CoTC decks and face this reckless darkness rising in Balor campaigns!

Regarding SoP, it is the hardest card to understand I've ever come across in SE, and I'm pretty sure that is due to the lack of information provided in the card's text as you mentioned earlier.

Shadow Era has great game mechanics, and some of these mechanics have a certain level of complexity, providing the basis for various and exciting ways to play in SE, which is a great thing. While said mechanics keep being transmitted in a simple and concrete way to the players, we'll keep enjoying SE regardless of game complexity.

I know the BoD already know this and you'll keep providing good stuff to a new and promising era in Shadow Era. Keep on the good work.